


A soft epilogue

by OfPillar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M, Gen, my real kink is finn dissing kylo all day every day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-14 17:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfPillar/pseuds/OfPillar
Summary: The return of the Duke of Alderaan incited all manner of gossip and speculation.





	A soft epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CajunSpice714](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CajunSpice714/gifts).



The House of Organa sat in the rolling foothills of Killik, a rambling estate of some 20,000 acres that encompassed not only the ancient stone manor, but also a lake, three stables, and the famed emerald vineyards, which produced grapes that shattered with sweetness upon the tongue when plucked fresh, but mellowed into a deeper, more intoxicating flavor during their transformation into wine. To the east, white-capped mountains surged toward the sky; to the west, it was a half day’s ride to reach bustling Aldera. Few outsiders traveled along the worn path that connected house to city. On rare occasion someone would be dispatched to fetch the physician for a house call, but over the years the staff had dwindled to the point where such events were quite infrequent.

 

Finn, who grew up on ships forever teeming with sweaty men and mice and the taste of salt between his teeth, found the pastoral quietude to be luxury, if a bit lonesome at times.

 

“Well I expect that will soon remedy itself,” said Mrs. Kanata as she chopped carrots and cubed salt pork for stew, her knife dancing nimbly across the counter. “Have you heard the news of his Grace?”

 

Finn paused in scrubbing the belly of a particularly blackened pot. “Lord Solo is visiting Corellia at present, is he not?”

 

Mrs. Kanata shook her head as she reached for an onion. “I meant his son. He’s apparently renewed an interest in the affairs of his title and arrives in a fortnight with his wife.”

 

A fortnight. “That _is_ soon,” said Finn. He wondered what manner of master the erstwhile Duke might make. Perhaps a charming, silver-tongued, restless merchant prince like his father, or if he had inherited his mother’s temperament, a steely but warm patrician. A thought occurred to Finn. “Is his Grace not a bit...advanced in years to be taking over control of the estate?”

 

“That he is,” replied Mrs. Kanata, somewhat darkly. “Ran off to join the army at three-and-twenty, can you imagine? Lord Solo never had much to say on the subject, but Lady Leia always maintained hope that one day he would return to fulfill the responsibilities associated with his peerage.” Privately, Finn revised his image of the Duke to incorporate this new knowledge. He could not be certain, having only grown up amongst sailors and scoundrels, but ordinary men presumably did not shun the wealth and freedom they were born into for the regiment and rough living of a military career. Finn could not even begin to fathom it for himself.

 

Out loud, he asked, “What changed his Grace’s mind?”

 

“Who understands anything that goes on inside that boy’s head?” Mrs. Kanata answered, gazing heavenward out of either exasperation or reminiscence. “With a mother and father like that, though, I suppose he was destined to run headlong into his own brand of trouble at some point.” She heaved a deep sigh, leaning back to wipe a bit of sweat from her brow. “At the very least, however, I shall be glad to make an acquaintance of this woman who has finally brought him home.”

 

*

 

“This woman” turned out to be a slight, tall girl of twenty-one years, whom Finn stumbled upon traipsing about one of the fallow fields during her second day at the estate.

 

“Oh!” she said, straightening up from her crouch, hazel eyes widening slightly. “Pardon me sir, I did not mean to disturb your work.”

 

She spoke plainly, and Finn was reminded that at some point during all the hasty introductions and dinner preparations and unpacking of heavy trunks, she had insisted on being called Lady Rey instead of Organa.

 

“Lady Rey,” he said, tipping his hat in greeting. “Were you...looking for the gardens?”

 

The gardens were located at the other end of the grounds, and could more appropriately be called a landscaped thicket of pretty weeds at this point of the year, but he difficulty conceiving of any other possible reason as to why a Duchess of the realm would be ankle-deep in the acre of dirt he had hoped to practice planting turnips in the following spring.

 

“Benjamin mentioned that he was fond of taking his studies here as a child,” Lady Rey explained. Next to her husband, she had seemed very small indeed stepping down from their fine carriage for the first time, slender gloved fingers swallowed up in the Duke’s dark grasp. Here, haloed in the late afternoon sun, she seemed to gain several inches, wisps of hair curling free from her loose bun without a bonnet to hold them back and protect her face, which was several shades tanner than the current fashion. “He spoke of yew trees from which one could see Aldera on a clear day, though I suppose the grounds have changed since his time here.”

 

Finn had no rejoinder for that, his employment at the House of Organa having commenced just six months prior. “I will ask Mrs. Kanata whether she recalls such a place,” he offered finally. “It is possible that the trees have not entirely been damaged by weather or pestilence.”

 

Lady Rey pondered this, no-nonsense brows drawing together as she idly flicked bits of dried mud from her simple muslin skirts. “Are you from these parts originally, Mr. Storm?” she asked suddenly.

 

Finn blinked. “I am not.” The proper thing to do next would have been to state his birthplace, but the pirates who kidnapped him had not seen fit to disclose this bit of pertinent information when they were ordering the whelp about scrubbing decks and mending clothes. Nor did Finn remember with any particular clarity the names of the towns he fled through during his desperate bid for freedom, fueled in equal parts by terror and revulsion. Aside from the deep river than flowed through it, Aldera was as landlocked as Finn had ever been. “I am not,” he repeated, “but I should liked to have been. As a child I could not imagine such greenery.”

 

For a moment they regarded one another: the groundskeeper and the Duchess. Finn worried at what a highly irregular sight this must seem - him still clutching a trowel, Lady Rey’s skirts streaked with mud and her head uncovered - when suddenly the Duchess broke out into a bright peal of laughter.

 

“That makes two of us then,” she said, smile turning cheeky and conspiratorial. Finn barely had time to register the words and contemplate why a girl who became Duchess of Alderaan would not have seen very much green around her growing up when Lady Rey made to take a step forward - and sprawled head over heels with a surprised cry.

 

*

“You, you, you incorrigible _hoyden_!”

 

From his position among the rose bushes, Finn glanced up as increasingly irate and frustrated imprecations hurled their way through the open windows of Lady Rey’s chambers.

 

“For the last time, it’s a turned ankle,” he heard the Duchess scoff. “I’m hardly an invalid. Mrs. Kanata retrieved some ice from the icehouse and now that you have laid me up in this ridiculous froufrou bed-”

 

“ _Ridiculous?_ ”

 

“-I expect I shall be right as rain by tomorrow morning.”

 

“When you will have no doubt devised of some other reason to heedlessly throw yourself in harm’s way and torment my sanity.”  


“I would hardly call tripping over a root throwing myself in harm’s way. And anyway, it worked out once, didn’t it husband?”

 

According to Dopheld Mitaka, the unfortunate stablehand tasked with informing Lord Solo of his wife’s injury upon his return from town, his Grace had flown into a frightful fury at the news and generally comported himself in a brutish manner. Not only did he shove Mitaka aside hard enough to leave bruises on the boy’s shoulder, but he had also stormed into the kitchen where Mrs. Kanata was tending to Lady Rey and carried her away shouting and pounding her fists ineffectually into his chest.

 

Now the Duke spoke with a more subdued tone. “Do you...truly find this bed ridiculous?”

 

A pause. “Perhaps more lace and silk pillows,” Lady Rey suggested dryly.

 

“You know what I mean. If there is something within my power to give to please you, you need only ask.”

 

“Hm. Just you, then.” Heat crept up Finn’s neck as the voices blurred into soft murmurs and ran together like streams. This was not chaste, affectionate conversation between a dutiful couple in polite company, nor was it the bawdy declarations he overheard in many dark pub corners in many disreputable port cities. This was something else. With as much stealth as he could manage, Finn disentangled himself from the rose bushes - twining and mounding for winter would have to wait - and slipped away toward the servants’ quarters, reflecting on how much he preferred knowing that the Duke of Alderaan was a black-tempered aristocrat with a vicious disregard for basic human decency, rather than a man with an achingly young voice, who could not bear to retire from his wife even so far as his own bedchamber for the night.

 

*

A month hence, the entirety of Aldera was awash with rumor and hearsay about Lord Benjamin Naberrie Organa von Solo.

 

The least baseless and poorly sourced rumors about the _haut ton_ tended to flow through one Poe Dameron, a milliner who could reliably be found holding court at his pub bookending Kessel Street, so whilst ostensibly on a trip to replenish the house’s supply of nails and twine, Finn found himself gesturing for a pint from the twin barmaids and eavesdropping like a madman.

 

“On my father’s good name I swear,” Mr. Dameron assured his crowd of rapturous listeners, “I have heard that his Grace salted and burned the entirety of the Hosnian islands as part of the war, that he bid his regiment destroy a village in search of a single map, and that he forcibly took the hand of Count Kenobi’s long-lost granddaughter by spiriting her on horseback to Takodana Green in the dead of night.”

 

Hearing this last proclamation, Finn could not suppress a snort of disbelief. The idea that Lady Rey might allow the Duke to make her do anything - besides be carried off giggling into his private study after dinner - was so absurd it bordered on comical.

 

Unfortunately, his amusement did not go unnoticed. “Now here’s a man on the inside!” Mr. Dameron exclaimed, jumping up and pointing at Finn across the room. “Tell us, Mr. Storm, what do you make of the Duke’s character?”

 

The crowd’s sudden, palpable swing in interest made Finn’s neck prickle with discomfort. Aldera was a large enough town that strangers were treated with benign curiosity most of the time; it had been easy enough to pose as a boy from the neighboring villages seeking work. An orphan and comparative nobody, he knew better than to draw attention or court controversy. Yet his mind persisted in imagining Lady Rey here instead: how, the absurdity of a Duchess visiting such an establishment aside, she would stand straight and proud as a poplar tree, unbending despite what everyone wished so clearly to hear.

 

“I think,” Finn said, feeling both annoyed and slightly foolish, “it might be worth trying to discern it for yourself.”

 

*

 

Never mind, he thought a week later, watching as the Duke of Alderaan stalked the halls of the manor like an irritable, silent, overgrown wraith. Finn had gone out that morning to fix a fountain and come back in the afternoon for lunch, only to find the house buried in silence from the aftermath of some terrific row.

 

“They either fought over a baby or politics,” Mitaka said. “It was difficult to tell.”

 

Finn sighed. “I suppose that sounds about right.”

 

If they were keeping score by territory conquered, then Lady Rey was most certainly winning the war. As night fell she refused to come down from the second floor of the house, meaning that the Duke was forced to share the ground level with staff. He couldn’t very well lurk about the servants’ quarters or the kitchen, so instead he took to storming between the library and main hall, muttering darkly while casting furtive glances up the massive scrolled staircase. Responsible for the destruction of the Hosnian islands or no, Finn felt quite secure in his belief that this was not the first time the Duke of Alderaan had been cornered by his little wife.

 

 _And thus the lion was tamed by a lamb_. He shook his head at the very image as he went to extinguish the oil lamps in the drawing room, thoughts turning idly from a mental list of the morrow’s chores to whether squash seedlings might fare better in red soil or yellow. Pushing aside the heavy oaken doors with a grunt, he stepped forward into the warmly lit space, only to stumble upon the Duke smashing a cut crystal glass against the wall.

 

It shattered with a musical explosion. Shards flew across the woven carpet, disappearing between intricate tapestries of animals frolicking through gardens. For a moment he and the Duke stared at one another, both of them frozen in amber.

 

Finn had always been very cautious, very controlled. As a child he raged and talked back like any youngling might, but the pirates beat it out of him with lashes in the morning and hollow bowls at night. Out on the sea, what was his belonged to his captain - or the rest of the crew, if she didn’t care to keep it. So Finn put his head down and learned to wake up when the stars were still fading from the sky, did his work on the ship without complaint, ate uncountable meals of tasteless brown gruel and was grateful, grateful, grateful. He ran away when they finally pressed a gun into his hand and pointed at the port city on the horizon, because it felt like the only choice left that was still his to make, and he’d picked his last name because at the time it conjured fantasies of being wild and unstoppable. In truth, whether following orders or defying them, Finn was merely an expert in survival.

 

None of that exactly lent itself to defusing nighttime disputes between a peer of the realm and his wife, but Finn coughed anyway and schooled his face into as neutral an expression as possible when he said, “Good arm, sir.”

 

The Duke’s gaze startled towards the jagged remains of broken glass. Like the guttering of a candle, the roiling fury in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a more subdued emotion that looked strangely like remorse.

 

“You don’t suppose she...heard that?” he asked after a pause.

 

Finn’s head took a turn about the neighborhood before he realized that the Duke was referring to Lady Rey, who most certainly would have noticed the bang and hubbub even one level above. “I do not think Her Grace easily alarmed,” he ventured. It was meant to be diplomatic and reassuring, but only seemed to incense the Duke further.

 

“So now I have given her cause to be frightened,” he seethed, voice climbing precipitously as the air seemed to darken. “It is not enough that I am a jailer and a murderous snake, but also a monster as well; by God, I suppose she is right on all accounts!”

 

“Ben.”

 

The lightning gathered in the room abruptly dissipated, as if sunk into the ground. Finn looked over his shoulder to see Lady Rey at the entrance of the drawing room, wrapped in a thick, warm-looking shawl and staring with such transparent alarm that for a moment he was inclined to agree with the Duke.

 

Then her fine features crumpled in relief, before quickly morphing into a glare that made Finn, who had _actually_ grown up around jailers and murderous snakes, feel a brief flash of pity for her husband. Clearly he had been mistaken as to who was the lion.

 

“What,” said Lady Rey, stalking forward with a clenched jaw, “in _hell’s bells_ were you trying to do to yourself?”

 

And Finn saw the Duke of Alderaan - infamous, fearsome, ruthless, forbidding - visibly gulp.

 

Under normal circumstances, he would have chosen this moment to make himself scarce, but there was something oddly satisfying about watching the Duke say, “Rey-”, wide eyes darting around the room for an escape, before she marched up to him and seized a massive hand in her own small one, lifting it up for inspection.

 

“Bleeding,” she said flatly.

 

The Duke grunted, seemingly torn between wrenching his palm away in denial and letting his wife hold it longer. “I had a disagreement with my nightcap.”

 

“Evidently it won,” she shot back. “And here I thought I’d seen the last of the great Kylo Ren in action.”

 

“I have survived far worse than a mere -”  Abruptly the Duke fell silent and jerked his head around, as if remembering that Finn still stood rooted to the carpet watching them.

 

“I’ll just,” he said, and practically fell out of the drawing room.

 

The next morning, Mitaka observed that Lady Rey’s mood was much improved, though Lord Solo the younger appeared to have had a rough evening.

 

“Right,” Finn snorted. He spotted them taking a turn about the gardens later that afternoon, which was enough to conclude that if the Duke looked like he was having a very bad day today, it was only because he had had an _excellent_ night prior.

 

A more surprising change was the influx of new staff at the House of Organa in the following weeks. Overnight, it seemed as though several of Aldera’s most feral and wary-eyed street urchins had been plucked up, washed, and newly clothed, set to work helping Mrs. Kanata in the kitchens or polishing the delicate silverware that Mr. Threepio, the perpetually nervous old butler, could no longer lift. Given the Duke’s commitment to looking terrorized whenever he came across one of these younglings wiping down the windows or calling him _Master Solo_ , Finn suspected that Lady Rey had orchestrated this bit of charity to bring some chaotic life into the house. He found it an admirable gesture, though unlike the Duke, Finn was more perturbed by the sole new servant who was most definitely _not_ a child.

 

“Rose Tico,” she said, dropping into a shallow curtsy. “That was a brave thing you did with Mr. Dameron.”

 

“Er,” said Finn intelligently as he wracked his mind for an idea of what she could be referring to. Since his uncharacteristic moment in the pub, he had been avoiding all interaction with the milliner during his brief trips to town.

 

Miss Tico wiped her palms on her skirts, clean face turned up to his. “When you chasisted him for spreading gossip about his Grace’s character,” she clarified. “Lady Leia is very fond of Poe, but even she had much occasion to reprimand him for letting his mouth circle twice about town before his head had put its pants on.”

 

With a start, Finn realized that she had been the shorter of the twin barmaids serving that night. “My apologies,” he stammered, feeling rather warm and uncomfortable at having his actions so loftily misconstrued. “It was my not my intention to, ah. I simply thought it unwise to speak ill of his Grace while I am under his employ.”

 

Miss Tico’s lips pressed together. “Even so,” she said after a pause, sounding oddly disappointed, before bidding him a polite goodbye and hurrying away with her basket of linens, the long, dark rope of her braid swinging behind her as she rounded the corner.

 

*

 

Eventually rampant speculation among the townsfolk died down, and the Duke and Duchess of Alderaan grew into just another curious presence in the area: the brutish nobleman and his unconventional, pretty young wife, who could frequently be spotted visiting the less well-bred parts of the city and charming its citizens while her surly-faced husband hovered nearby, presumably scaring the crows from their perches.

 

“How does his Grace occupy himself while accompanying her?” Finn mused out loud once, to which Mrs. Kanata merely grinned and replied, “He’s still in the honeymoon phase, my dear child.”

 

Two weeks later, an entirely different sort of rumor wound its way through the region like thread. According to Miss Kaydel Connix, the barrister’s daughter, Lady Rey had until recently been the ward of a minor landowner in the Jakku Borderlands, where one day the handsome Duke of Alderaan had quite by accident rescued her from an engagement to the unscrupulous rake; the two had then embarked on a very perilous, exciting, and romantic adventure that led them discover her lost parentage in the House of Kenobi.

 

“Well that last part must be untrue,” Miss Jessika Pava pouted, “for my mother’s aunt is the wife of a clergyman and _she_ heard it was Lady Rey who saved the Duke from an injury he sustained in battle, _and_ that he was so overcome by her beauty he paid a scandalous sum to purchase her a title so they could be wed.”

 

“ _Your_ mother-” Miss Connix sniffed, eyes flashing as she flounced her voluminous skirts, at which point Finn decided that was all he cared to overhear before ducking out the front door of the cobbler’s shop.

 

*

 

When all the gardens had been turned down for winter, and the fireplaces stacked with freshly split logs that smelled of clean pine, Finn awoke one morning to find the world blanketed in white.

 

“Is the first snow always so thick?” he asked. Childish screams of delight rang down the hallway like bells, led by Temiri, one of the youngest stablehands and an utter menace when it came to devising new tricks to play on Mr. Threepio.

 

“Lady Rey said everyone gets to go _sledding_ ,” the boy shrieked as he barrelled past, clad in boots and a grey woolen coat while dragging along a wide plank of wood.

 

“Yes, it comes down from the mountains and deposits here before moving on the city, so we tend to get the worst of it,” Mrs. Kanata replied. Her eyes twinkled as she patted his arm and cast a meaningful glance towards the wide-open front doors, where small drifts of snow had already begun to melt across the checkered marble flooring. “I hear that this is the Duchess’s first snow as well, so the two of you may as well enjoy yourselves.”

 

“Enjoy” was not precisely the Finn would use while hurtling down a hillside so fast the wind sliced into his cheeks, clinging for dear life onto one of the children’s rickety sleds made of sheet metal and wood scrap and held together with nothing more than some glue and a prayer.

 

“That was an impressive fall,” Lady Rey said as she handed him back his scarf and gloves, which had gone flying when he swerved to avoid hitting a stately maple. “Like watching a tumbleweed roll into a canyon.”

 

“My grace and wit are unparalleled,” Finn agreed.

 

Despite the icy dampness soaking through his boots, the Duchess’ excitement was infectious. As the wind blew a fine sheet of crystals down from the pine boughs, she stretched out a fawn-colored glove and caught several on her fingertips, examining nature’s lacework with a focused wonder. Her wind-chapped, rosy countenance cast a glow over the hillside that seemed to make everything cheerier and more merry when one saw it through her eyes. Finn watched the children lob snowballs at one another from behind bushes, felt himself linger for several long seconds on Miss Tico’s small, bundled form as she helped Mitaka haul another sled up the slope, before blinking twice at the disorienting sight of Lord Solo engaged in a duel of treesticks against Temiri.

 

“Perhaps you ought to give my husband some lessons then,” said Lady Rey, though the softness of her smile left little doubt as to her fondness for his current emotional range of a coal lump.

 

Based on how often the Duke was allowing himself to be stuck by a branch whilst catching her gaze with equally transparent longing, Finn supposed it was fortunate that no one had seriously opposed the love match. He knew of poems in Rylothian that described hanging the moon and stars for your sweetheart, had listened to old wives’ tales from Kamino about the mermaid who pined for a human man so ardently she turned to sea foam on the waves. The Duke of Alderaan would have made an excellent fire-breathing dragon in those stories, cloistering away the princess and hoarding her attention like jealous treasure.  At any rate Finn suspected Lady Rey was not entirely opposed to this either.

 

Dinner that evening was a tired but happy affair. The Duke and Duchess both chose to take their meals upstairs, bickering like thieves with heads bent close together as they disappeared onto the second floor landing. Finn slunk off to the kitchens, where Mrs. Kanata was well prepared with roaring fires and hot baked potatoes slathered in rich fragrant truffle butter, which tasted so heavenly that he forgot his manners and let out a long moan of appreciation.

 

“Good, isn’t it?”

 

Whirling around, Finn saw Miss Tico framed in the doorway. She was still apple-cheeked from the cold outside, brown frock clinging to her small, compact frame and stained dark with melted snow as she fiddled with the damp end of her braid. “That’s how we used to stay warm in Otomok on cold days,” she added after Finn failed to contribute anything of substance to the conversation beyond gawping like a beached fish with a stuffed-full mouth. “Put a hot potato in your pocket for your hands, then break it open later and add a pat of butter…” Her pretty, pleasing voice trailed off as she colored again, this time from mortification.

 

It was like a kick to the head. “Are you - are you not from Alderaan originally?” Finn asked, fumbling for an appropriate response as he swallowed and scrubbed his mouth clean with a sleeve.

 

Miss Tico hesitated. “My sister and I were born in a village called Hays. When the mines there closed down after the war, we were sent here to find work.”

 

Finn had no basis for comparison, but something about the stubborn set of her chin and her determinedly dry eyes compelled him to say, “That must have been hard, leaving home.”

 

“It was several years ago. Alderaan is my home now, as I hope it will be - um, as it may one day become yours.” She paused shyly before adding, “Oh! Unless perhaps you would like to see more of the world before you settle down.”

 

Finn shook his head. “I think I have had enough to do with adventure for a lifetime.”

 

*

Of course, that was simply telling trouble where you lived.

 

The first portent had been the postman, who at first light delivered an envelope sealed with wax the color of dried blood. Mr. Threepio had turned even an paler shade of ash than usual when he saw the coat of arms stamped onto the seal - a honeycomb shape with a round maw inside - before skittering off to find the Duke.

 

The second omen was the rushed directive to prepare the house for dinner guests. “You’ve got to be joking!” Finn heard Mrs. Kanata curse as she flew about the kitchens like an avenging angel putting down a mutiny. Given the number of boiling-over pots and angry flames spitting out from the bellowing stovetop, she probably was.

 

The third sign was the instruction that all servants be in full uniform tonight. The Season was still several months away, most of the country’s rich and idle fled to their southern residences, and so no one had anticipated that Organa House might need more staff to properly entertain guests. As he could reliably be trusted to carry a platter from the kitchens to the dining room without dropping or spilling anything, Finn was conscripted into waiting on the guests. This meant nearly strangling himself several times while trying to tie a cravat in the reflection of a pewter plate until Miss Tico did it herself, deft fingers settling the knot of cotton fabric snugly beneath his chin.

 

“You look - very dashing. Distinguished,” she said.

 

In her yellow muslin dress with blonde bobbin lace, Finn thought her quite lovely as well. What came out was, “I. Um. You too.” He felt certain even the earth was too embarrassed to open up around him at that moment and swallow him whole.

 

From there, the day turned into a cascading series of mishaps and minor housekeeping crises, which would have been almost comedic if everything had not culminated with Armitage Hux, sixth Earl of Arkanis, leaning back in his chair at the formal table and saying, “Come now Ren, this elaborate farce has gone on long enough, has it not?”

 

One time, when Finn was very young, there had been a man from Hoth on the ship. Lean and possessed of an almost supernatural hearing given that he’d been snow-blinded since the age of thirty, he described the wampas that preyed on lost travelers in the region: yellow-eyed, hairy, fanged nocturnal beasts that could crack a man’s skull between their front teeth like a nutshell. The travelers in turn learned to carry plenty of matches and kindling, and to venture in groups, such that one person was always awake to keep watch over the moving shadows just beyond the campfire’s protective glow.

 

Standing at attention in the gilded dining room, with its dark wood paneling and ageless oil portraits of masters past rendered in deep chiaroscuro, Finn was abruptly reminded of creatures circling at the edge of light.

 

“When I initially heard that you’d given up your post,” Lord Hux continued, examining the dregs of his fifth drink with one pale eye, “I thought you had finally come to your senses.”

 

He was a waxy, pompous, detestable sort of man, managing to strike a balance between obsequious and cruel that was almost pitiable. Across the room, Finn caught Mitaka’s eye and they shared a mutual look of unease at the scene. Even setting present company aside, the setup was a little ridiculous: the dining table had clearly been built to serve a far greater number of guests than the three currently seated at it. Thus, while the Earl dined at Lady Rey’s elbow as per social convention, he had to raise his voice while conversing with the Duke, who smirked humorlessly from the other end of the long table which groaned under Mrs. Kanata’s cornucopia of offerings.

 

“Funny, I always thought you rather enjoyed my being a dog of war,” said the Duke. “Though I’m given to understand that politics is not much better. A room of rabid curs, if you will.” The utter contempt in his voice for Hux outstripped any of the violent curses he had hissed at Mitaka over these past weeks, and Finn had the distinct impression that if the two men were not separated by a greater distance after all, fisticuffs would have already been engaged in. The situation felt like a rattling, overfull teacup, ready to spill over and scald at any moment.

 

Lord Hux rankled at this clear insinuation, but outwardly it lasted no more than a moment before his face smoothed into smug superiority. “You’re not far off. The news of your marriage has cast a very long shadow, Ren; imagine my own shock at reading the banns when they were published in Coruscant.”

 

The Duke’s expression conveyed that he would have liked to see that very much, possibly for a hefty viewing fee.

 

“I had hoped ascertain the reasons for your haste by paying a visit in person-” Here, Lord Hux ran a skeptical eye over Lady Rey’s tense, mechanically chewing form “- but I confess that I now find myself even more perplexed than before. What game do you think you are playing? There is no one in any of the Great Houses that does not know of the patched-up business that was your attempt to insert her name into the Kenobi’s extinct lineage. Is such a girl to be trotted out before your peers and their wives unfettered, free to demand the same rights they have been accorded by blood? And is such infamous breeding to be permitted within spitting distance of the Skywalker line of succession? Heaven and earth, are the shades of Alderaan, Corellia, _and_ Chandrila to be thus polluted?”

 

“Elevated, actually.” To Finn’s lasting amazement, the Duke did not rise from his seat to strike the Earl of Arkanis about the face. He did not even move a muscle, save for the effort of placing down his utensils and locking eyes with Lady Rey. A wordless frisson of promise seemed to pulse between them, like an arrow lancing into deep water. “When my wife’s blood mixes with my own, it will have known no purer form.”

 

Somewhere in the universe, Finn thought ruefully, Miss Kaydel Connix and Miss Jessika Pava were probably screaming with glee.

 

A sneer of pity and derision twisted Lord Hux’s face. “You may take the sand rat out of Jakku, but a sand rat she will always remain,” he replied, emboldened, as Lady Rey suddenly grew very still. The Earl sighed and shook his head, resuming his work on a thick cut of roasted pheasant. “That was always your weakness Ren. You’ve grown too sentimental. I heard good female company was difficult to come by in the army, but I truly did not anticipate that you would lose your head over the first moderately attractive female who can stand to be around you for more than thirty seconds and suck your cock-”

 

It happened so fast that upon later reflection, Finn could not say whether Lord Hux's fork even had time to hit the tablecloth. A shadow seemed to rip him from where he sat, but it was not until the Earl let out a choked whimper that Finn blinked and _saw_ the Duke with one hand wrapped around Lord Hux's windpipe.

 

It had been some time since he witnessed such casually brutal violence. Or at least the threat of it. Beside him, Mr. Threepio trembled delicately.

 

“Put him down, Ben,” said Lady Rey, not looking up from her plate.

 

For a moment Finn nearly laughed at the absurdity of the request. She might as well have wished for a fleet of flying horses or for the sun to stop shining. Then the Earl made a wet coughing noise as the Duke opened his grip and let the man fall to his knees.

 

“Her Grace is, her Grace is merciful,” Lord Hux wheezed, lurching to his feet. His voiced dripped with flattery, his eyes glassy with barely banked loathing. “My sincere apologies. The wine has set me....quite out of sorts. I believe I will take my lodgings in town tonight.”

 

“How unfortunate,” Lady Rey said. “In that case, I must insist you finish your meal first. It is quite a bit of a journey.”

 

Rising against his protests, she swept up his plate and dining utensils in one lace-gloved hand, carrying them to the opposite end of the table where the Duke sat and placing them adjacent on the right. Turning around, she touched the strand of ash grey pearls draped across her neck, chin upturned and face lit to a lovely flame.

 

“Did you know,” she began in a voice that called to mind craggy mountains rising out of the mist, a wine-dark sea, starlight scattering across the sky, “that in Alderaan the mistress of the house sits at the head of the table, those of superior rank on either side of her, and so on and so forth until one reaches the master at the lower end?”

 

“My dear lady-”

 

“Nothing is considered a greater mark of ill breeding than to interrupt this order. And my husband tells me that you are very fond of order.”

 

With dawning comprehension, Lord Hux looked away, grimacing as he said, “Thank you for...enlightening me, your Grace.”

 

Lady Rey smiled. “Oh, and one more thing.” Gathering the miles of emerald green silk that made up her gown, she stepped across the silent room and looped one arm through her husband’s. “Do not refer to my lord as Ren. His name is Benjamin Naberrie Organa von Solo, eleventh duke of Alderaan, and he has more goodness and bravery in one little finger than you will ever possess in this life or the next. Now, sit down. It’s time for dessert.”

 

*

 

By the next morning, every soul in Aldera was buzzing with news about the altercation that had occurred at Organa House the previous evening. According to rumors circulating out of Poe Dameron’s pub, Armitage Hux had stumbled into an inn at some outrageous hour raving at great length about how the Duke was a bloodthirsty devil and his wife, a leather-winged impudent strumpet. This angered a great many members of the citizenry, who shook their heads and observed that the Duchess was in fact quite patient with her time and generous with bringing the townsfolk’s concerns to her forbidding husband. After all, the milkman whispered, had the bridge over the canal not been recently widened so that more than one cart could cross it at a time? And, the merchants’ wives chattered to their bemused husbands over break-fast, had the Duke not ordered the repair of several roads that children often played on so that fewer broken arms and turned ankles were brought to Aldera’s physician? Thus, the general consensus was that even if Lord Solo acted violently towards the Earl of Arkanis, the latter more than likely earned it through his boorish and slanderous conduct.

 

As a result, Lord Armitage Hux found that upon his attempt to depart Alderaan, all semblance of luck seemed to turn against him. His horses came untied and were found four miles away by the bogs, idly chewing at feed; the interior of his carriage smelled oddly of garlic and sulfur; any attempt to purchase bread or other sustenance for the road were met by stony declarations that the storekeeper had _just_ sold out the last of his stock. The Earl was last seen cursing and bursting out the city gates like a bat out of hell, glowering over one shoulder before yanking the carriage curtains shut.

 

For his part, Finn reached a mutual accord with the Duke never to discuss the events of the previous evening: “As for my own character, I hardly think more damage can be done,” the Duke explained, looking approximately as uncomfortable as Finn felt about this conversation. “But for those in town to be privy to the particulars of what Hux said - well, I would prefer that my wife remain unencumbered by association.”

 

“I believe the finer points of the night escape me,” Finn offered delicately.

 

The Duke nodded. “Very good then.”

 

*

 

It was Lord Han Solo who granted Finn the position of groundskeeper and gardener at Organa House, though given his lack of previous experience he could not be sure whether the man acted out of pity, compassion, or simply a vague interest in causing as much chaos as possible. Finn’s first few months passed in a state of terrified apprehension; despite the fact that neither Lady Leia nor Lord Solo the elder spent much time at this residence, he felt strongly that they would not appreciate coming back to find the front lawn withered and bare from the time he used too much fertilizer.

 

Thankfully, Alderaan was blanketed under a thick layer of ice and slush by the time the two of them returned for a visit. “My good man!” Lord Solo exclaimed when Finn rushed out to take his trunk as Mr. Threepio quivered under a tower of several boxes wrapped in butcher paper and twine. “Glad to see you haven’t run off.”

 

“I wouldn’t do that, sir,” he insisted.

 

Lord Solo raised a brow and regarded him before winking. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t now. You don’t have that look in your eyes anymore. Let me guess, is it some girl?”

 

Finn sputtered.

 

“Han,” interrupted Lady Leia, her deep plum skirts swishing imperiously over the frozen earth, “stop harassing servants and come help unload your luggage before I do it myself.”

 

“Now wait just a - hey, Threepio, where in blazes do you think you’re taking that package? It is _delicate!_ ”

 

The Count of Corellia must have been quite dashing in his day; even with hair streaked more silver than brown, he exuded a roguish, cocky charm that made one want to trust him against their better judgement. Even Lady Rey, who was not easily charmed, became unaccountably shy and flustered when the Count pressed a kiss to her hand, much to the Duke’s chagrin.

 

“Tell me, is he very terrible?” Lord Solo asked gleefully. “Has my son suddenly developed an appreciation for the softer delights of life, or does he still act like a bull in a china shop when it comes to the fairer sex?”

 

Lady Rey’s cheeks pinked as she appeared to concentrate on her fan. “My lord is very kind and, um, attentive,” she muttered, casting a sidelong glance at the Duke, which promptly caused him to turn scarlet as Lord Solo cackled in triumphant delight.

 

“Ah, _my lord,_ is it?” the Count teased.

 

“I will strike you where you stand,” his son hissed, but sulked off after Lady Leia called for him to help her decide on tonight’s menu.

 

When night fell the Organas and Solos retreated into their drawing room, conversation carrying through the high rafters of the manor along with the occasional sweet notes of a clavichord picking out refrains from old holiday melodies. As he moved several of the Count’s smaller boxes, which rustled and rattled with concerning frequency, from the main hall to the cellar, Finn found himself pausing to catch the colorful mishmash of voices that overlapped through the doors.

 

“The Toniray will want our care soon,” said Lady Leia, stately and joyful above the golden clink of fine china and very good crystal. “But in the meantime, I suggest that we eat ice and be above vulgar economy. The pleasures of family, and of unreserved conversation, will make good amends for wine.”

 

“Here here,” Lord Solo agreed. “Now, Rey, do tell us what you think our son’s finest feature is.”

 

There was a choking noise followed a dull thwack. “Just because _you_ are suffering a crisis of vanity does not mean _we_ must suffer the consequences,” Lady Leia said serenely. “I do apologize for my husband’s lack of manners. His idea of romance involved spilling a drink on me in the gardens during my Season debut, stripping off his jacket, and offering it to me for warmth _._ ”

 

“That’s how you court a woman, sweetheart.”

 

“Shamelessly and with no tact at all?” the Duke snapped.

 

His father chuckled. “You cannot deny the truth that is your family, Ben. It’s a strategy that’s worked for us Solo men for generations.”

 

*

 

In hindsight, assuming that no one would venture into the unlocked private study off the library at night was a mistake.

 

That was how, in the midst of his first kiss with Rose, Finn heard the doorknob turn open. Acting on reflexes born from years of jerking awake at the slightest rumble of a sea cannon, he dragged them both behind one of the massive bookcases that lined the walls, pressing a hand over Rose’s soft lush mouth as they locked eyes in mutual frustration and alarm.

 

“I changed my mind,” declared the bright, breathless voice of Lady Rey. “This is the only good part of being rich.”

 

To Finn’s great horror but not surprise, her companion let out a throaty laugh as their footsteps drew nearer. “The _only_ good part?” the Duke of Alderaan asked.

 

“Well, aside from the scented baths,” Lady Rey allowed. “I’m quite fond of those too.”

 

“Convenient hidden rooms and scented baths,” her husband said dryly. “If only I’d worked those into my first proposal.”

 

Rose grabbed Finn’s left hand in a crushing grip as the Duke and Duchess drew ever closer to their hiding spot, before veering at the last second towards the heavy mahogany desk that sat a few feet away, just beyond sight.

 

“But then I would not have gotten to hear your second,” Lady Rey laughed. “And then where might we be today?”

 

“A very astute point, my clever wife.” At the unmistakable sounds of lips locking and arrested sighs, Finn exchanged a wordless look of horror with Rose. If they were discovered, he thought glumly, at least he had been privy to enough scarring material to try and blackmail his way into keeping his position. That is, if the Duke didn’t have him tossed out a window first.

 

“I thought you merely found yourself attracted to a runaway country bride against your better judgement,” Lady Rey teased. “After all, you _had_ just suffered a grievous head wound the first time we met.”

 

“Oh Rey, you were more than simply pretty.” This time, the animal rumble of the Duke’s words was unmissable.

 

She chuffed, evidently trying to suppress the giggle that wanted to escape from her throat. “What else, pray tell, was I then, my lord?”

 

Good God Finn thought, why did marriage involve so much _talking?_

 

“Many things,” the Duke answered. “Capable and warm. Lonely - but not anymore.”

 

“Because of you.”

 

“I should say the same.” His voice grew thick and muted, as if muffled against skin. “What else? Vexing, hopeful, self-reliant, stubborn, an absolute _menace_ in a street brawl.”

 

“Thank you,” replied Lady Rey primly, before crying “Oh _stars_ Ben, do that again,” voice thready with need.

 

The Duke was not faring much better. Sounding punched-out, he gasped, “An insouciant-”

 

A stuttering sigh.

 

“Little.”

 

A hum of agreement.

 

“Trollop.”

 

“Only for you,” Lady Rey whispered. “I’ve only ever wanted to be that if it’s for you.”

 

There was a loud clattering followed by a dull thump, as if several heavy objects had been swept off a flat surface so someone could lay upon it. Finn watched a round paperweight roll to a stop beside their hiding place, cracked obsidian surface brushing the toe of his boot. Then the desk began to rock _,_ drawers and legs creaking rhythmically as soft moans and harsh breaths punctuated the dusty silence. Heat erupted across Finn’s face as he realized that Rose was still gripping one of his hands, her lips exhaling soft puffs against his other palm, staring back with dark, shocked eyes. Her narrow fingers suddenly felt very small wrapped around his own. Yet neither of them dared widen the millimeters of space between their bodies; somehow, it felt like the universe would explode if they did.

 

After what could have been five minutes or cosmic eon, the Duke and Duchess concluded their tryst and slipped out the way they came in, none the wiser about having made accidental voyeurs of innocent passers-by. Finn could not clearly recall how he and Rose disentangled themselves after the footfalls faded down the long hallway. He could not remember how they parted ways beyond a fumbling, heated look backwards at the entrance to the female servants’ quarters, nor could he provide any details as to how he managed to get himself into his own bed.  A very rational voice told himself that if he concentrated hard enough, this whole night would just go away, and he could continue working at the House of Organa without ever needing to remember how Benjamin Solo ruined Finn’s first kiss by - by _canoodling_ with his wife on a desk six feet away.

 

With a groan, he rolled over and mashed his face into his pillowcase, which smelled much as Rose had in the close quarters of the private study: clean, and sunny, and feminine, with a hint of the powerful lye that always left her fingers red and bit swollen. The memory made something sweet clench and flip over in his belly. Was it always like that, Finn thought curiously as he slipped into sleep’s gentle undertow: all the rapturous, heady, quiet words of gratitude and affection that passed between the Duke and Duchess like water. Did people always come together as the sky did to the sea, without regard for pride or power or pasts, love deepening over and over until they were dead in the ground.

 

*

 

The snow was just beginning to melt from the mountains when the Duke and Duchess of Alderaan left with a great deal less clamor and hubbub than when they arrived. Watching Mr. Threepio load up boxes and trunks of clothing in one of the carriages under the Duke’s watchful eye, Finn asked, “Where do you intend to go?”

 

Lady Rey grinned at him under her wide-brimmed hat, looking impish despite the rich blue and silver confection she was laced into. “Oh, here and there. I have not been to see a great many places, so Benjamin says we have a substantial trip ahead, even before the Season begins.”

 

“A pity. I suppose you’ll not be around to see the starblossoms bloom then.”

 

“Oh, I don’t expect we will be away quite that long.”

 

With surprise, Finn tore his gaze away from where the Duke was gesturing with great impatience and volume at Mitaka, who at this point only looked somewhat concerned for his life. “What would bring you back -” He stopped, watching as the Duchess rested a hand over the flat plane of her stomach before dropping it to her side again. “I see,” said Finn, eyes widening.

 

Lady Rey shrugged. “He’s a sensitive man,” she said without a trace of irony as the Duke stormed off back inside the manor, Mr. Threepio trailing frantically behind. “I don’t wish to get his hopes up before the third month passes, but Ben would make a wonderful father, and I - I would like to give him a family. In all the forms it may come.”

 

Finn knew better than to make promises over which one had no control. Still, it was a glorious day, a cool sweet breeze blowing down from the north that carried whispers of green and growing things, a reminder that life endures despite the harshest winters and most pitiless droughts. “Everything will be all right,” he said, not sure where the confidence in his voice was coming from, only that it felt right. “These things have a way of working themselves out.”

 

“I believe so too,” Lady Rey laughed. More knowingly, she added, “Speaking not as a mistress to her servant, but as a friend to a friend, I hope you and Miss Tico find such similar happiness in the coming months.”

 

Finn nearly leapt out of his skin. “How did you-” he started to ask, but just then a door banged shut and the Duke clomped back down the gravel path, a thick woven shawl in a delicate shade of jade green wrapped around one arm.

 

“What are you two discussing?” he asked, gaze roving with mistrust but no real suspicion between them.

 

“Just the flowering of the starblossom trees sir,” Finn lied smoothly.

 

Not missing a beat, Lady Rey nodded. “I think we should make time to come back and see them, don’t you agree?”

 

The Duke huffed, eyes narrowing. Then, in one fluid motion, he circled the shawl around her shoulders and used it to pull her into a deep, claiming kiss, bold as brass under the Alderaanian sun. In the background, the youngest servants screamed with scandalized delight. Finn could not help but smile as well, reminded that all noble titles and infamous deeds aside, sometimes the Duke of Alderaan was just a man who loved his wife. The simplicity of it sent a pang through Finn, and he wondered briefly what might transpire between a quiet groundskeeper and a comely laundress during the long thaw from winter to spring.

 

“We shall go wherever you like,” the Duke said when the pair finally pulled apart, grinning with boyish delight as Lady Rey turned several shades redder and swatted him across the chest. Opening the carriage door himself, the Duke helped her up before climbing inside and looking back once at his ancestral home - wonderingly, it seemed - before the carriage creaked and started to roll forward on its next journey.

 

*

 

_The life that I have_

_Is all that I have_

_And the life that I have_

_Is yours._

_The love that I have_

_Of the life that I have_

_Is yours and yours and yours._

_A sleep I shall have_

_A rest I shall have_

_Yet death will be but a pause._

_For the peace of my years_

_In the long green grass_

_Will be yours and yours and yours._

\- Leo Marks

  


**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to CajunSpice714 for your awesome prompts :) I went with the escaping-an-arranged-marriage one, but slightly diverged by using an outside POV and focusing on what comes after Rey and Ben get together. 
> 
> As always, feedback/reactions/concrit is much loved and taken to heart :)


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